Lost Soul Ultra 100 - The Mental Challenge

This is part four in my attempt to recap my 100 mile odyssey:

Part I: The Team

Part II: The Course

Part III: The Physical Challenge

Part IV: The Mental Challenge (this post)

Part V: The Gear

"Running an ultramarathon is 90% mental.  

And the other 10%, that's mental too"

                              -Scott Jurek

Going into this 100 mile race, I told my wife that there were only three reasons that I was allowed to drop out and quit:  

#1 - if I pee'd blood (which happens to runners more often than it probably should)

#2 - if I was going to injure myself to the point of needing surgery

#3 - if I broke a bone in one of my legs

Basically, from the start of the race, quitting was not an option for me.  I made up my mind ahead of time, and that was that.  I had determined that if I missed a time cutoff, I would turn in my bib and keep going until I hit the finish line anyway.  I was not stopping until I reached the 100 mile goal.  And that was that.  

One of the primary reasons that I didn't allow quitting to be an option was because of my diet.  As a vegan, I feel like my food choices are under constant scrutiny from others - probably more so because I'm a runner.  I'm rather confident that if I were to have quit for ANY reason (blisters, pain, broken femur, ...) there are some who would attribute my lack of success to my lack of meat.  And quite frankly, I couldn't let that happen!  I know that I am far healthier now than I was when I ate a more "traditional" diet, but my choice is still met with judgements on a frequent basis.  So, for all of the vegans out there, I was making damn sure I finished that race!   Let's face it - if I run 100 miles on nothing but plants (and licorice!), any questions about protein and energy can quite easily put to rest by pointing to the 30lb finisher's rock that's sitting in my living room.  

I ran the race without my Garmin, as I knew that I couldn't let myself get pre-occupied with pace & distance.  Nothing like looking down at a watch and seeing 18 miles down, 82 more to go!  For the first loop, I put my Garmin in my backpack, because I did want the GPS file from the course.  But, the Garmin was out of sight, out of mind.  Instead, I ran with my Timex stopwatch/heart rate monitor, since I still wanted to make sure I wasn't pushing myself too hard at any given point.  

I made it a point to focus on getting to the next aid station, and not to the end of the course.  Breaking it up into chunks (aid stations were never more than 10 miles apart) made the distance seem much more manageable.  After running 70 miles, thinking about going 5 more is a lot easier than thinking about going 30 more.  

Part of the mental challenge of the race involved getting over some of my fears.  I am terrified of snakes, and the course runs through some relatively thick rattlesnake country (in addition to bull snakes and garter snakes).  Not being able to see the trail through the thick weeds didn't help that fear at all.  But, it didn't take me long to realize that if I'm going to be bit by a snake, the snake doesn't really care if I'm afraid of it or not.  If it happens, it happens, and I can't spend the entire 100 miles worrying about the snakes.  I did see several garter snakes along the way, and at one point I put my pole down in the grass and heard the distinct sound of a rattler, but I pushed the encounter out of my mind and kept going.

Speaking of animals, as I was pushing my way through some tall weeds along the river in the middle of the night, I had the sh*t scared out of me when I heard this loud "thump, thump, thump, thump" coming from almost under my feet.  I look down, and I nearly stepped on a beaver.  A frickin beaver!  Come on Canada, you're not helping out the stereotypes!  Anyways, I banged my poles together a few times and he eventually moved out of my way.

Despite the 3am encounter with a beaver, my spirits remained quite high through the night.  Many people have said that the night is the most difficult part mentally, and that with the sunrise comes a renewed sense of energy. Around 4am, I remember thinking that I couldn't imagine feeling any better mentally when the sun came up - I felt so good already.  I was enjoying the moon, had seen the northern lights, and was enjoying the solitude of running alone in the dark.  And then it hit me around 4:30.  I'm not sure if was the lack of sleep, or if I let my mental focus drop, but that was the closest I came to considering dropping out.  Nothing changed physically, but the battle with my mind started in full force.  Luckily I was close enough to the start of my final loop, the sun would start peeking out right away, and I knew that John, my pacer, would be joining me soon - basically, I kept myself going by knowing that there were some good things to look forward to right away.

By the middle of the second day, my mind was rather foggy from lack of sleep.  I struggled to remember how bad the hills were in certain sections as we approached them, even though I had been over them twice already.  By this time, I think I was more in autopilot than anything else.  NOT thinking definitely makes the race go by quicker.  All in all though, it wasn't quite as mentally challenging as I was expecting.  Yes, it was extremely difficult, but I had prepared myself to do all out battle with my mind.  Prior to the race, I had thought about different mental games/scenarios that I would have to play with my mind to keep going, but luckily I didn't have to pull any of them out (they largely involved comparing my situation / pain to people who have gone through specific situations that were far worse, in an effort to diminish whatever I was going through).

I was surprised how long that it took after the race for me to regain my mental capacities.  I'm not sure if I was mentally exhausted from the race, or if I was just so physically exhausted from the constant movement and lack of sleep that my mind didn't function properly.  But, the mental recovery was almost slower than my physical recovery.   And that I wasn't expecting.